Tomorrow and Tomorrow
by kitsunefire
Summary: Adventure 01 If candlelight casts a shadow, imagine the darkness that a sun can create. Part 1 Gatomon reflects. Part 2 Ken hates school.
1. Spots

**disclaimer** If I owned Digimon- giggles Sorry. Sorry. The idea of me owning Digimon is just so laughable! chortles Yeah… go ahead, you can read on now.

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There were times when Gatomon was sure she didn't deserve what she had. When she would wake in the darkest hours of the night, trembling where she was curled on Kari's stomach or stretched out at the girl's side. When half remembered night-terrors drove the feline from her Chosen's side for fear of waking the sensitive girl with either her weak trembling or the strong emotions that escaped her usually iron control and seeped down the empathic link all digimon shared with their partners. She would slink away, away from the light and heat and comfort of a fire that was mostly embers and back to the darkness… both an old friend and a loathed enemy. 

And in the cloaking dark she would seek out that solitary strength that had fueled her before she had found Light, the strength that came from facing or living the basest of all emotions. These emotions were easy, both to understand and to enact, and with the easiness came a feeling of strength. _If I can live in the face of wrath, and pride, and avarice,_ she had reasoned with herself at one point,_ surely I can handle anything_.

Here, her returning strength would be shattered, ripped apart as easily as she, as Salamon, had been ripped apart by Myotismon. She would feel the returning walls of her heart being penetrated as easily as Myotismon's fangs had punctured the delicate necks of the women _she_ had killed. Yes, _she_ had killed them. She had killed them by not fighting against Myotismon as hard as she could have, by giving into his will and not stopping him sooner. This, Gatomon's mind reasoned, was why she did not deserve the eight year old sleeping back at camp, whose Light shone like a killing desert sun on the part of Gatomon that was dark, smudged, tainted. She didn't deserve any of them, the fifteen-member party resting in the woods of the Digital World. They trusted her, welcomed her despite what she had done to them and to others through her actions… or her inactions.

Gatomon would curl in a nest formed by the gnarled roots of a tree, or high in the branches, or even in patches of grass, shivering and panting despite the comfortable temperature of the midnight air. Her purple tipped tail would quiver with anxiety, her ears would fold against her head, her eyes squeezed shut, keeping both the darkness and the light from penetrating any further than her eyelids. No, no, that wasn't true. Even isolated and closed off as she would make herself, the darkness would _still_ find a way to eat away at her… it was with her always, coating her vision in black, inky slime than ran in living globules whenever she shut her eyes. She was marked, stigmatized, and the darkness would never let her forget it.

In the morning, before the sun rose, she would slink back to camp and curl herself on Kari's stomach or along her side in the tightest ball she could manage. She would press an ear to the girl's skin, and be lulled back to sleep by her heartbeat… Gatomon's reassurance that there was still good in the world, and a cause worth fighting for.

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**an **I played with ending this about four different ways before decided on this. I deleted at lot, and reworked some, but I'm happy with how it turned out (despite the fact that this ending is a lot more depressing than the one I had in mind.) This story will end up being either a three-shot or a two-shot depending on what I feel I need to write to complete the story.


	2. Supp'd Full With Horrors

_It is some compensation for great evils that they enforce great lessons._

-John Christian Bovee

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"Ken, could you tell the class what the answer is?"

Ken despised school. For many years he had hated his ignorant classmates; the fools that clung to the coattails of his genius and his athletic ability. They would never be as amazing, stunning, _perfect_ as Ichijouji Ken. He had hated his teachers for an even longer period of time. They thought they could profit from having him in their class; as if their brilliant teaching was what caused his genius! Fools, the lot of them, asking for his autograph or _video game tips_ after hours. He was above them, _better than them_. To them, he was king, czar, lord, führer, caesar… Kaiser.

For a time he hated school because he was not placed on a pedestal high enough to satisfy his insatiable ego.

Now though, things had changed.

"Ken? Are you feeling well?"

Now, he was free of the dark spore and free of his loneliness, drive, and intelligence he had experienced after Sam's death. He was free of the darkness.

"I'm feeling fine Mr. Yukimura," He said, raising his dark eyes to meet the teacher's confused gaze, "But I don't know the answer."

"D-don't know the answer!" The man sputtered. Ken met his gaze evenly perhaps even coldly, sitting back in his desk and ignoring the way he could feel his classmate's eyes on him, hear the whispering that broke out in their ranks.

No matter how things had changed though, Ken still despised school. It was a terrible reminder that no matter how much _he_ changed, the people around him never would see or acknowledge that change. They would never let go of the boy genius, the soccer star that was to be admired, respected, bathed with accolades. They didn't want to loose their idol. And if they couldn't accept his change, these humans that he had never (as far as they knew) wronged, how could anyone else?

He wanted, craved for the approval, the forgiveness of the digimon more than anything. He didn't want the memory of the Kaiser to incite fear in the hearts of digimon. He did not want them to flinch when they saw him (they reacted badly even when he was among the other digidestined.) He wanted them to think of change when they spoke of the emperor, to think of a boy that had finally found his way.

"Actually Mr. Yukimura," Ken said. "I'm _not_ feeling well. May I be excused?"

The teacher looked almost relieved (Ken was ill! No wonder he wasn't at the top of his game.) and quickly wrote Ken a pass to the nurse's office. The nurse allowed him to go home, but Ken did not make it back to his apartment for hours. Instead he went to the park and hunched down on a sun soaked bench, trying to get the light to sink into his skin.

Ken despised school. He could never leave the building without reality lashing him stingingly in the face. He would never change enough to make up for what he had done and he could never escape the darkness that was ground into his soul by years of reveling in making others suffer. He could try to hide it, try to bask in the light from the other digidestined, but anyone who knew it was there could see the darkness inside him as plainly as deep, dark black ink splashed across the delicate wings of a white butterfly.

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**an** I've decided on making this a three-shot, so next chapter will be the final chapter. A very quick summary of what's coming up: an after noon in sunlight and an afternoon in darkness.

Chapter titles are from MacBeth (which I don't own) in case anyone cares.


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